The controversy surrounding Slavneft, one of the last remaining state-owned oil companies in Russia, took another twist on Friday (May 17). A court bailiff showed up at Slavneft bearing documentation concerning a decision by a district court in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, nullifying the... MORE

The ongoing battle for control over Slavneft shows the degree to which powerful financial-bureaucratic clans continue to use law enforcement organs and the courts as weapons in internecine power struggles, just as they did throughout the Yeltsin era. Indeed, the Slavneft controversy is not the... MORE

With the formation of "NATO at 20," the alliance's relations with Russia have almost overnight surged far ahead of NATO-Ukraine relations in political terms. Ukrainian officials are concerned lest this development translate into a Russian voice in the new forum on matters affecting Ukraine, in... MORE

With Russia and the United States having reached high-profile agreements on a strategic arms cut plan and a new Russia-NATO cooperation council, the two countries are expected to turn their attentions now to narrowing differences over Moscow's continuing nuclear and military cooperation with Iran. The... MORE

An attempt was made yesterday on the life of Anatoly Makarenko, the vice-governor of Smolensk Oblast, where voters will go the polls on May 19 to elect the regional governor. A car ferrying Makarenko, his 5-year-old daughter and bodyguard came under gunfire yesterday morning as... MORE

President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday that he was widening the powers of Akhmed Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration. Putin said Kadyrov could now independently appoint the members of Chechnya's government and the heads of its towns and districts. According to the Russian president, Kadyrov... MORE

Swallowing hard, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is putting his cherished Soviet-era industrial assets on the auction block. Only Russia's state-connected capital seems interested, and is likely to acquire those depreciated assets at cut-rate prices. This development will enable Moscow to tighten its political grip on Belarus.... MORE

The United Ukraine faction, set up under the guidance of President Leonid Kuchma, has gathered 178 deputies under its banners in Ukraine's newly elected 450-seat Verkhovna Rada (parliament). This is far more than the next two largest factions--the center-right Our Ukraine (118 seats) and the... MORE

On May 13, the Krasnoyarsk Krai legislative assembly voted to hold the region's next gubernatorial election on September 8. The need for the election came on the death of Krasnoyarsk's incumbent governor, Aleksandr Lebed, in a helicopter crash last month (Russian agencies, May 13; see... MORE

The CIS summit, just held in Moscow, turned out to be a rump forum. Only six delegations came to Moscow from the eleven member countries. Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the heads of state signatory to the CIS Collective Security Treaty--Russia, Belarus,... MORE